This National Cooperative Vaccine Development Groups for AIDS contains two Research Projects that propose to further develop and study four types of novel vaccine candidates for HIV and SIV. The candidate vaccines under development in Project 1 include recombinant stress fusion proteins, genome-less retroviral particles and live recombinant BCG vehicles expressing antigens and lymphokines. The candidate vaccines under development in Project 2 are centered on genetically modified autologous antigens presenting cells that produce both antigens and lymphokines. A central theme in the research underway in this NCVDG is the development of vaccines that deliver a combination of selected antigens and lymphokines to the sites of antigen presentation. Our strategy is to genetically engineer these candidate vaccines, to investigate the immune responses, to compare the ability of these reagents to elicit specific immune responses, and to provide these reagents to other investigators for further studies in primates. An interactive group of consultants and collaborators has been established to support this NCVDG. Collaborative interactions have also been established with other NCVDGs to enable testing of the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of selected vaccine candidates in primates. Our objective is to improve our repertoire of vaccine reagents that have well-characterized abilities to elicit strong and long lived immune responses to HIV. Our long term goal is to develop an efficacious AIDS vaccine.